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From 1 July Single Touch Payroll applies to all employers What employers need to report will also be extended to include certain salary sacrificed amounts. From 1 July 2019, single touch payroll – the direct reporting of salary and wages, PAYG withholding and superannuation contribution information to the ATO – will apply to all employers.…

Legislation in limbo A budget, an election and the legislation that hasn’t made it through. The February 2019 Parliamentary sitting days were the last opportunity before the Federal Budget for the Government to introduce or push through new legislation. Next month, on 2 April, Parliament reconvenes for the Federal Budget and it’s likely that an…

Has anything changed? Women and girls make up just over half (50.7%) of the Australian population. While women comprise roughly 47% of all employees in Australia, they take home on average $251.20 less than men each week (full-time adult ordinary earnings). The national gender “pay gap” is 15.3% and it has remained stuck between 15%…

What you need to do 1 July 2019 is not that far away. If your business does not already use STP compliant software, you may need to upgrade your systems or implement new ones. STP requires PAYG withholding and superannuation contribution details to be reported to the ATO as payments are made to employees or…

ATO scams The refund scam follows a more sinister four phase scam stating there is a warrant out for your arrest for unpaid taxes in prior years. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has warned about the emergence of a scam where “…scammers are using an ATO number to send fraudulent SMS messages to taxpayers asking…

Another year, another scam! While data-driven crime is more sophisticated and difficult to address than ever, human error and judgement remains one of the major problems. The latest data breach report from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is surprising for the simplicity of the problems – 37% of data breaches resulted from…

Statement from Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan about transition to STP for small employers Parliament has now passed legislation to extend Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting to include all small employers (those with fewer than 20 employees) from 1 July 2019. STP is payday reporting by employers to the ATO as it happens, this reporting having started on…

What the stats say While 4 in 5 of us rate our health as ‘very good’, 50% of Australians have a chronic condition that is likely to cause their death, 63% of adults are overweight or obese, and around 45% of us will experience a mental illness in our lifetime. Leading causes of death differ…

Life does not always go to plan While we logically know that, most of us don’t plan for the worst – it’s all a bit morbid and time-consuming. The downside of not planning is the potential for hard-earned assets to be squandered, family fall-outs, and money handed to the Government that could have been distributed…

Do you earn income overseas? A recent case highlights why you might pay more tax than you thought on foreign income. If you are an Australian resident and earn income from overseas, such as income from investments, sale of assets such as property, distributions from foreign trusts, etc., you will generally need to declare that…